Dagger Magic

Chapter Twenty-Eight

THE sun was going down beyond the horizon, sparkling the calm surface of the harbor with flakes of copper fire. In the fishing village of Derrybeg, the copper glow was picked up and reflected back from the windows of the houses facing the water. Most of the working boats were still out at sea, leaving the harbor empty except for a handful of small pleasure craft anchored in the shallows. The only large vessel standing in at the dock was a forty-foot converted fishing boat with the name Rose ofTralee picked out in peeling paint across her stern.

Her skipper, one Dennis Plunkett, was lounging in the stern, leaning against the taffrail while he smoked a cigarette - a beefy, big-bellied man in his middle fifties, with a rusty spattering of freckles across his face and the backs of his hands. As he scanned the sky from east to west, pushing his captain's cap back off his forehead, he figured that maybe twenty minutes of daylight remained. Already the sky to the east was dotted with stars, with the full moon shortly to be on the rise.

He glanced down at his watch, then took a final drag on his cigarette and flipped it into the water past the diving platform fixed to the stern, just missing the inflatable dinghy tied there. A light footstep approached from behind, emerging from the cabin, and a tenor voice spoke to his back.

"It's getting late, Skipper. So where's this client of ours got to?'' With a shrug, Plunkett turned to address Liam O'Rourke, the younger of his two crewmen.

"He said he'll be here. After all, this is his party. And it's already half paid for, whether he shows or not."

O'Rourke heaved a sigh and ran a sun-browned hand through his bristle-cut thatch of light brown hair. A former girlfriend once had told him he looked like James Dean, and he had made every conscious effort since to live up to that image. After a moment he sat down on one of the stern lockers.

"I don't know," he said doubtfully. "This whole job begins to smell a little. I'd give a lot to know where Kavanagh's boss came by his information about this wreck we're supposed to be checking out tonight. I mean, you've been running salvage operations in these waters for nearly twenty years, but you tell me this is the first you've ever heard of it."

"It is. That still doesn't mean a rat's arse. What the hell, Liam, you know as well as I do, how cutthroat this business can be. If you get a good lead, you'd bloody well better keep it to yourself, because if you don't, some other shark will try to move in and jump your claim. Why else do you think Kavanagh's boss is planning to show us the way to this wreck of his in person, rather than just giving us the map coordinates? It's because he doesn't want to risk letting us in on the secret any sooner than he has to."

"Must be some secret," said O'Rourke. He chewed his lip thoughtfully. "What kind of wreck is it, anyway? Do you know?"

Plunkett nodded. "Kavanagh had to tell me that much, just so we'd know what kind of gear to bring with us. It's a German U-boat, Second World War."

O'Rourke looked disappointed. "Is that all? Hell, with all the destroyer action that went on around here, dead subs are practically a ha'penny a dozen. But nobody's ever yet found one with any sunken treasure in it."

"No," Plunkett agreed. "Still, there's always a first time."

Before he could say anything more, Seamus Dillon, his first mate, came up from the hold.

"That's everything stowed away, Skipper," he reported. "All the air tanks are recharged, and the cutting gear is packed and ready. Wish we'd had time to get some explosives, though."

At the mention of explosives, Plunkett pulled a face.

"I don't know what you want me to do about that. This job came up at short notice. We'll just have to make do with what we've got."

Dillon gave a rub to his jaw, shadowed with evening stubble.

"Well, I just want you to know it makes me nervous, going down on a dive like this without 'em. I don't suppose you could talk our mysterious client into postponing this operation for a few days?'' he said without much hope.

Plunkett shook his head. "Not from the way Kavanagh was talking. He says tonight."

"After all these years, what's the bloody hurry?" Dillon wondered sourly.

"Kavanagh says his boss might be expecting trouble from a rival party," Plunkett replied, "but my guess is that they want to be in and out of this wreck before the authorities get wind of it and start throwing in legal obstacles."

"Bloody bureaucracy," O'Rourke muttered. "We do all the work, take all the risks. Seems to me it ought to be 'finders-keepers.' '

"Well, it is, if we get there first, and the authorities don't know," Plunkett said with a sly smile. "Assuming, of course, that there's anything worth finding and keeping."

"Assuming, of course," Dillon said drily, "that this whole thing isn't just a front for some gun-running scam."

"That thought had crossed my mind," Plunkett said, "but I don't see how that's any concern of ours, as long as we get paid." He spat over the railing in a gesture of patent indifference.

"As long as they don't blow our brains out, once we've served their purpose," Dillon pointed out.

Plunkett merely grunted.

"I think it's too late to back out now," O'Rourke said, standing up to gaze toward the landward end of the dock. "Would that be your Mr. Kavanagh?"

He pointed toward a grey Mercedes saloon just pulling up, with a driver and two passengers. The first passenger to alight was manifestly Kavanagh himself, the dying light picking out a darkly handsome set of features above a pair of shoulders that would have done credit to a Rugby center forward. As he fetched a large duffel bag from the boot, shouldering it with ease, the second passenger emerged: taller and slighter, a willowy figure with a briefcase who might have been anything from a university professor to a certified accountant. He bent to speak briefly to the driver, then turned to follow Kavanagh toward the dock as the car pulled away.

"I think you can stop worrying," Plunkett said to Dillon. "Unless the driver's coming along, there's only the two of them, and the 'boss' looks to be the executive type."

Kavanagh led the way down the dock. Dillon and O'Rourke faded back against the taffrail as Plunkett came to the side to meet their new clients. Kavanagh boarded with a bound, depositing his duffel bag on the deck with a metallic clunk.

"My diving gear," he announced as he turned back to the taller man following at his back. "And this is Mr. Raeburn. From this point onward, you'll be taking your orders from him."

Handing his briefcase to Kavanagh, Raeburn stepped lightly down into the boat, then paused to give a fastidious twitch to the cuffs of close-fitting grey leather gloves as his pale eyes scanned his new employees. He was kitted out in grey, from his polo-necked sweater and leather bomber jacket to his grey cords and grey deck shoes - not half so impressive as his employee, in Plunkett's unspoken opinion. Kavanagh had the build of a prizefighter, and his clothes spoke loudly of financial success, from the flash designer-cut of his jacket and trousers to the heavy gold and carnelian signet ring he wore like a knuckle-duster on the third finger of his right hand. Plunkett noticed with mild interest that the device seemed to be the snarling head of some kind of big cat.

"Good evening, Captain," Raeburn said. The tone left no doubt in Plunkett's mind that Raeburn really was in charge. "If everything is ready, as Mr. Kavanagh requested, I suggest that we get under way."

Within five minutes, the Rose was moving slowly away from her berth, nosing out of the little harbor and heading northward along the Donegal coast. Their course took them due north and then east around the point of land known as Bloody Foreland, so-named for the way the setting sun sometimes lit its heights, though the sun had already set tonight. By the time they were passing close by the cliffs of Inishbofin, the full moon had risen like a copper penny from behind the dark line of the shore, gradually silvering the water as Inishbofin dropped away off to port.

Leaving Kavanagh to keep an eye on the movements of the crew, Raeburn repaired to the tight confines of the cabin, setting his briefcase on the scarred wooden table adjoining the tiny galley and then extinguishing the cabin lights. During the course of the next half hour, he watched from the cabin's starboard window as the coastline became increasingly rugged, massy headlands rising up from moon-drenched water.

At length Raeburn roused from his contemplation of the coast and returned to the table, plucking off his gloves and then opening his briefcase. By moonlight he removed a Walther PPK pistol from one of the cutouts in the foam lining of the case and tucked it into a special holster sewn into the lining of the leather bomber jacket, then pocketed several spare ammunition clips and a miniature two-way radio. He then removed a cylindrical black box as long as his hand and a handspan around, giving the cap a quick twist and upending the cylinder thus opened to shake out a small, tightly rolled scroll of parchment. After returning the cylinder to its place, he plucked out the scroll of parchment and closed the case, laying the scroll on the closed top as he pulled a chair closer to the table and sat.

The ring he slipped from the third finger of his right hand was a more elegantly crafted version of the one Kavanagh was wearing. The bloodred carnelian surmounting the heavy gold band bore the same device: the snarling head of a lynx. Setting it on the case before him, he pulled a small pocket torch from an inside pocket and took up the scroll, unrolling it to read four lines of Tibetan script.

He mouthed the words once to fix them in his memory, then began slowly whispering the words as a mantra, replacing his torch in his jacket pocket and letting the scroll roll back on itself, twisting it narrower. Turning his focus to the muladhara chakra at the base of his spine, he began summoning up the serpent power. He could feel it gathering, an almost sexual tension building upward, as he took up his ring between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand and thrust the scroll through the circle of the band.

The parchment vanished in a consuming flash of flame, and as he inhaled the smoke of it, pressing the ring to his forehead and closing his eyes, he could feel the kundalini serpent uncoiling within him, pushing open the successive chakras at sacrum and solar plexus, breastbone and throat, finally fountaining up his spine to roil behind his eyelids, opening the sixth or ajna chakra, the aptly called Third Eye. As a prickling sensation broke out between his eyebrows, just above the bridge of his nose, he shifted the circle of his ring to the same spot and opened his eyes again, turning his gaze toward the moon-drenched shadows of the shore.

The minutes ticked by as the Rose continued to press north and eastward, running parallel to the rugged cliffs of Horn Head. They had rounded the point when all at once Raeburn's augmented vision espied an unearthly shimmer of green light emanating from amongst the rocks, just to the right of a narrow crescent of beach.

He stared at it for a moment, to fix its position firmly in his mind. Then, slipping his ring back onto his finger, he drew a deep breath to bank the energies, got to his feet, and went topside. He found Dillon operating the sonar, shaking his head as he studied the readings. Plunkett was at the helm, Kavanagh standing between him and Dillon. O'Rourke was up on the bow, keeping a lookout for the rocks that occasionally jutted out of the water farther inshore.

"Take her in to half our present distance from shore and drop anchor," Raeburn said.

"We've only got about thirty feet of water right now," Plunkett said, though he spun the wheel to take the Rose in closer. "You sure about this location?"

"Beyond all mortal doubt," Raeburn replied. "Have your men bring up the dinghy as soon as we've dropped anchor."

"But - "

"The wreckage is in a sea cave, accessible from the shore," Raeburn said, in a tone that did not brook further discussion. "We'll need your equipment ashore."

Plunkett said nothing until O'Rourke had set the anchor and the engines had been shut down, watching as Kavanagh brought two large canvas satchels from out of his duffel bag and laid them beside the stern lockers.

"We're only going to get three in the dinghy, with so much gear," Plunkett said, as Dillon pulled the dinghy closer to the diving platform suspended off the stern. "If you want all that to go ashore as well as the cutting equipment, I suggest that you go across in the first trip with Dillon and me, and then we'll send him back to fetch Mr. Kavanagh."

"That's entirely reasonable," Raeburn replied, much to Plunkett's surprise.

Plunkett boarded the dinghy first, settling in the stern beside the little outboard motor. Dillon followed with a canvas bag containing flares and a brace of electric lanterns. Next O'Rourke handed down a large duffel with acetylene tanks and cutting equipment, after which Raeburn climbed down, perching in the bow. He took the two canvas satchels Kavanagh handed him and set them at his feet, silent as Plunkett fired up the little outboard and O'Rourke cast off their bowline.

The moonlight cast hard shadows as the little craft buzzed toward the slender crescent of beach, the Rose's running lights gradually fading against the bright glare of moonlight. Within a few minutes, the little inflatable was running up onto the sandy crescent, which was already narrower than it had been, with the tide coming in.

"I expect we're going to run out of beach before we run out of tide," Plunkett remarked as Raeburn sprang lightly to the sand and he followed. "Where's this sea cave of yours, Mr. Raeburn?"

Raeburn shouldered one of his satchels and gestured off toward the cliffs to their right, leaving Dillon to retrieve the other and draw the boat farther onto the sand.

"Up there. If you don't waste time talking, we'll be well above the high-water line before it becomes a problem. Just pull the dinghy up as far as you can and moor it. And bring the equipment."

They followed these somewhat autocratic instructions without comment, Plunkett breaking out the electric lanterns and handing one each to Raeburn and Dillon before hefting the cutting equipment onto his shoulder and scooping up the bag with the flares. As they began trudging up the beach, heading for the cliffs with Raeburn in the lead, the tiny radio in his pocket beeped.

Plunkett stopped dead in his tracks, and Dillon said, "What's that?" as Raeburn pulled out the radio and lifted it to his mouth.

"Go," he acknowledged, also drawing the Walther as he turned.

"Rose secured," came the terse reply, even as the moonlight glinted off the gun-metal in Raeburn's hand.

"Stay where you are, gentlemen," Raeburn murmured, before lifting the radio to his mouth to acknowledge. "Roger."

"What the devil's going on?" Plunkett demanded, as Dillon glanced back at him in alarm.

Raeburn moved aside and gestured with the gun for the two to come on past him.

"Please take the lead, Mr. Dillon," he said quietly. "There's still a great deal of work to be done this evening."

As Dillon sidled on past, keeping a wary eye on the gun, Plunkett followed, tight-jawed - and balked in his tracks as two outlandish human forms stepped suddenly between him and his first mate, out from behind an outcropping of rock. The pair had shaved heads, and were wearing what looked like bright orange sarongs. Though these men were old, Plunkett vaguely remembered seeing kids dressed like this in Galway one summer, amiably dispensing meditation tracts to passers-by.

But there was nothing amiable or meditative about the way these two moved briskly forward, each bearing a strange triple-edged dagger. As Plunkett uttered a croaked cry of dismay, one of the monks raised his blade in warning, pointed straight at Plunkett, while the other tapped Dillon's forehead with the point.